FAIR School

FAIR School (Fine Arts Interdisciplinary Resource) is a magnet school located in Crystal, Minnesota that specializes in the Fine Arts and educates students in the 4th through 8th grades. FAIR is part of the West Metro Education Program (WMEP) [http://www.wmep.k12.mn.us/] School District, with its partner school IDDS (Interdistrict Downtown School), located in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, which is K-12.

Purpose

FAIR was created with the idea of incorporating art into traditional academics as well as to encourage diversity. The school's mission statement reads:

"We are a Fine Arts Interdisciplinary Resource community empowered by diversity, and committed to academic excellence and artistic expression."

Departments

FAIR School extends its reach to a wide variety of arts, including:

Theater

The theater department at FAIR school works with Stages Theater Company to produce 2 shows each year: a fall musical and spring play. Past shows have included "Robin Hood", "Wind of a Thousand Tales", "Into the Woods, Jr.", and in spring 2007, "The Wonderland Project". InterDistrict Downtown School also holds performances on the FAIR School stage.

Dance

FAIR's dance instruction focuses mainly on modern dance, with classes taught daily in the FAIR dance space. The school holds various dance performances by the students throughout the year. The dance department hosts a yearly visit to the 5th grade class by Minneapolis dancer Stuart Pimslerr [http://www.stuartpimsler.com] and members of his troupe, with the visit culminating in a show by the class.

Visual arts

The Visual Arts teacher at FAIR School teaches sculpting, wheel throwing, body structure, sketching, landscapes, and more. The all year 7th grade art class does a primitive outdoor pottery firing. Students help dig a hole, which is lined with sawdust. The clay pieces are wrapped in copper wire, seaweed, splatter with salt water and other materials, which affect the coloring of the clay pieces, which will then be wrapped in newspaper. For most of the school day the students monitor the fire and keep it going.

Media arts

The Media Arts department includes a TV Studio, Mac Lab, digital photography, animation, and education about using Photoshop to edit digital pictures.

Literary arts

The FAIR Media Center includes books, reference materials, movies, and computers for research. The literary arts department also publishes FAIR's annual art magazine, "Voices", which is released every April and publishes work by FAIR students, including poems, stories, and drawings.

Choir

Melissa Brunkan is the current sound art teacher and choir instructor. For students there is after school choir, 6th grade choir, and 7th and 8th grade choir. For the 6th grade choir and the after school choir every year there is a concert at Mall of America in the park.

FAIR school in popular culture

FAIR School was the school that the character played by Hayden Panettiere went to in the 2001 film, "Joe Somebody".Fact|date=August 2008

External links

* [http://www.wmep.k12.mn.us/fair/ Official school website]
* [http://www.wmep.k12.mn.us/ School district website]
* [http://www.idds.k12.mn.us/ Partner school (IDDS) website]